Paper Moon

At the end of 2013 artist in residence Ilona Gaynor works with Craig Sinnamon at V2_ on the project 'Paper Moon'.

Image from Paper Moon

Contemporary visions of space tend to be positioned firmly within a collective romanticised view, our attention being drawn on sci-fi aesthetics, the hero or the patriarchal.

Paper Moon explores the emerging legal and economic consequences of prospective acquisitions currently on the horizon. Common Law (that is to say Earth’s common law) has no legal definition for what ‘Outer Space’ actually means, what it is, and where it is. The problem we face with such literal unmarked territory; is the emergent field of ‘Space Law’, a hybridised law built from a varying spectrum of pre-dated policy, speculation and foresight.

With a surge in larger scales of power and wealth, technology is no longer bound by government or social visions, but can be planned and executed by privileged individuals. On paper, in various offices across Earth, the galaxy has become a Wild West of marked territory, land grabbing and fortune hunting.

Paper Moon presents a library of investigation into several current and prospective investment plots, plans and contingency strategies that focus more directly on economic territories being cultivated, won, lost and considered throughout various offices around the world.

Drawing from historical archives, news reports, scientific papers and law the work is presented as a cluster of texts, photographs, maps, objects that coordinate various opposing plans, currently on the desks of the dominant stakeholders.